ATLANTA — There is so much buildup to a bowl game, too many days and weeks to analyze and overanalyze every game. The interminable wait for kickoff only makes outcomes feel more certain.

Washington wasn’t just the biggest underdog in the three years of the College Football Playoff. Against undefeated, defending national champion Alabama, the Huskies were a two-touchdown underdog, a spread larger than any team faced in the 16-year history of the BCS, a number larger than the Giants faced against the 18-0 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

But with one pass, nothing seemed certain anymore. When Jake Browning found Dante Pettis in the end zone for the Peach Bowl’s first score Saturday, the sound in the Georgia Dome was scarier than silence.

The heavily outnumbered purple contingent had made its presence known like a persistent cough in a movie theater, capable of ruining what nearly everyone else had been looking forward to.

The 2,625-mile trip was validated. The cross-country flight? A path to heaven. A thinner bank account? A cost that would be forgotten far faster than Washington toppling the greatest dynasty in sports.

How could Chris Petersen have been counted out? Finally, with his chance to play for a national title, the coach was in position to pull off an upset for the ages, one day shy of the 10-year anniversary of Boise State’s Fiesta Bowl stunner over Oklahoma.

Then came the alarm clock. Then came the reality everyone expected.

Last season, Alabama coach Nick Saban showed he could win by changing with the times and embracing an up-tempo offense. Saturday, the 65-year-old showed he didn’t have to, winning his way and improving to 7-1 in playoff/national championship games to move within one win of tying “Bear” Bryant with six national titles.

And if it wasn’t for former Washington coach Don James — who led the team to the 1991 national championship — Saban wouldn’t have been there to deny the Huskies of another title shot.

In 1973, James, then the Kent State coach, offered his former player a graduate-assistant position, but Saban had no desire to go to graduate school, having always planned to run a car service station, like the one his father ran and he worked at as a kid in West Virginia.

His wife, Terry, however wouldn’t receive her degree for another year, allowing James to convince Saban to try one season on the sideline.

“I think he meant so much to me and I had so much respect for him, I think he made this decision for me. I did not make it for myself,” Saban said during the week. “I had no intentions of being a coach.”

Instead of becoming the guy you shoot the breeze with about yesterday’s game while your car is worked on, Saban spent most of the next two decades as an assistant, not reaching the peak of his profession until his 11th job — winning the national title in 2003 at LSU.

Still, immortality wasn’t close. It required Saban’s two uninspired seasons with the Miami Dolphins. It took Mike Shula being fired one year after signing a six-year extension. It took West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez passing on the opportunity to make the Crimson Tide a national power again.

That is how Saban earned a statue outside of Bryant-Denny Stadium, and moved to within inches of being known as the greatest college football coach of all time. For nine straight years, Alabama has held the No. 1 ranking in the country. Before Saban arrived, the Crimson Tide hadn’t been the top-ranked team in 15 years.

Saban has no split titles at Alabama, no championships awarded by pens. He coached conference championship games and playoff games, and competed in a national landscape that seemed to ensure dynasties were dead, becoming the first coach to win national titles at two different schools.

If Saban gets another ring, the season will end as he’s made us expect it always would — and always will, as long as he stays in Tuscaloosa.

“When you get to this point in the season, it’s a little bit like running a marathon,” Saban said. “You get to the 20-mile mark and you still feel like you’re only halfway there, but we got more miles to go.”